


When the fields were razed

by merryfortune



Category: Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Aphrodisiacs, Artistic License, Dubious Consent, F/M, Force-Feeding, Kidnapping, Minor or Implied Relationships, No Dialogue, Possessive Behavior, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:49:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24800338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merryfortune/pseuds/merryfortune
Summary: Valter, God of the Underworld, takes a bride.
Relationships: Eirika/Valter (Fire Emblem)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 16





	When the fields were razed

**Author's Note:**

> The tags are to be on the safe side as the myth retold is sometimes referred to as _The Rape of Persephone_ but in this retelling, the pomegranate seeds act sort of as aphrodisiacs/something to un-inhibit Eirika but just in case they read more as date rape drugs, I've tagged it Rape/Non-Con.

The first living visitor to the Underworld was an unwilling one, the Goddess of Eternal Springtime, Eirika.

She was twin sister, younger, to the Sun God, Ephraim whose domain was the fertile Earth and all its light soaked grains but unlike him, Eirika had no important realm to concern herself with. She was free to spend her time in joy and sloth; something she did not loathe.

Her brother, Ephraim, meanwhile, was often absorbed with the on-goings of the people, helping where he could with what he had. Eirika was more idle than that, so to speak. Not necessarily spoilt as she was very frequently remarked upon as kind or gentle, agreeable, but she was never asked to help with harvests and such, like her elder brother. So, she spent her time basking in the sunshine and practising – playing, some may chide her – swordplay and making gifts, like floral wreathes, for her friends, such as Tana and L’Arachel, and of course her brother.

It was said that wherever she went, flowers would bloom, and a gentle warmth would take a hold of the weather. She was a rather pleasant maiden and with such fine qualities, it was unsurprising that she would many attract suitors but the man who wanted her above all else was Valter, God of the Underworld.

For him, it was love at first sight. Their eyes had locked. His presence caused plants to die but hers, hers healed what he ruined. She took his breath away, she looked a simpleton, sitting amongst the heather and the daisies but her eyes were so wide. So pure. She said hello as he was on his way. A coincidence. He was on a trek to find the perfect ores to build a new weapon from, a lance, and she had been his way. He did not reply, awestruck, but the vision never left him. She farewelled him coolly as he left, on his honourable quest unknown to her, and his heart pounded for the first time since creation.

Words bloomed and died on his mouth; he would have liked to have said thank you. He was taken with such a token of kindness alone. Her hand waving him goodbye with small gesture.

As he strode through the lands, in search of the materials to make his new, unholy weapon, he couldn’t help but to salivate over the maiden. This warm feeling in the ice-cold chambers of his chest. It could only be love. Twisted and obsessed love. What remarkable prey, the virgin Eirika would make for him. Down in the Underworld, where no light did reach its darkest and most miserable depths, where the damned would wail in envy of those blessed with the countenances of the Elysium, Lord Valter believed that Eirika would make a fine addition in that garden poisoned with indulgences. An evil of place of eternal springtime would be perfect for a maiden such as she, yes, he could so easily envision her imprisoned in that meadow. His meadow.

He desired greatly to wed her and to take that innocence from between her legs. So, Valter sought the consent of Lyon for such a marriage to take place. Lyon was the Emperor God, a man reigning over all deities, great and minor, and ruling over the heavens with a wise sovereignty. More placid than not, Valter was confident that he would be able to overrule any interference he may encounter should he broach the topic to Ephraim the Sun God and older brother of his beloved who remained just out of reach. But such confidence was swiftly shattered when Valter approached Lyon with the topic of wishing his blessing over his possible engagement with Eirika, Lyon was enraged.

It was well known that Lyon was a companion of Eirika’s brother: the sun and the sky went hand in hand, after all, but what was not so known, given his airy demeanour, oscillating between terribly tempestuous moods and clear kindness, was that Lyon also harboured feelings for the Goddess of Eternal Springtime.

A clash unfolded between the respective gods of the heavens and the underworld. Fiery magics against the honed steel of a lance, Lyon and Valter had a furious altercation over the rightness of their respective loves for the same woman. Their vicious fight was one which caused volcanoes to erupt and for lightning to strike, sparking fires, and was horrendous. But, fortunately, it was quick enough for a fight amongst the gods. Valter was a self-preserving, even cowardly scoundrel. The moment that Lyon did so much as touch his cheek, Valter knew it was best to retreat and so he did.

He returned to his throne at the bowels of Tartarus and he devised a plan. Using the strength of his newly crafted lance, he had great ideas on what to do with its new and unchecked power. He cackled to himself, lifting the heads of his mongrel wyvern, Cerberus, in curiosity, wondering about the cacophony.

Thus, with all that sick and cruel love in his heart, Valter grew hasty. He wanted his beloved, his princess, to be within his domain soon. Now. And so, he delivered on such promises that he made to himself beneath the knowledge of the Emperor God and beneath the knowledge of the Sun God, too. He would take Eirika all for himself.

His desire was grand. It broke the surface and cracked the land. A chasm opened up before where Eirika played by herself in the grass. She gasped as hellfire licked at the air and her eyes went wide when she saw a golden carriage towed by a three-headed wyvern came from the depths of the chasm, unperturbed the fire which spewed out.

Valter, at the command of this carriage, tugged on the reins and he circled Eirika once and at the completion of this hectic revolution, one which had her struggling to breathe at the epicentre of it. But she remained stalwart, even suspicious, as her eyes caught blurred glimpses of the wyvern and its rider: all a blur of gold and cobalt before that single, most deft strike.

With one arm, Valter did scoop up Eirika, from where she knelt amongst the long grass, surrounded by all her favourite flowers and her resting sword and half-made creations, and was plucked – abducted – from such peacetime indulgences.

Against the bar of his arm, strong and lean, Eirika tried to get away. She bit and scratched and clawed at him, but he held her tighter, embracing her in what he considered the most powerful love, sighing into her hair, inhaling the sweet fragrances that she exuded. Eirika tried to scream and shout but her lungs ached as she was pulled downwards so swiftly into the Underworld. From that cruel embrace, Eirika watched as the chasm was sealed. Shafts of light from heaven, sunlight and the blue sky and all its dear and tender clouds, were eradicated from her vision. Pitch blackness fell on her eyes so adjusted to nigh endless light.

Trying to reach out, trying to return to return to freedom in futility, Eirika screamed the name of everyone she loved: Tana, L’Arachel, Lyon, Ephraim, Ephraim, Ephraim!

But none could hear her screaming from so below in the depths of the Underworld as she was taken. None but Valter who relished how she fought against him. She was so lively. He found it adorable and splendid.

He had her paraded through his castle in the Underworld. Roughly shown about the place so she knew where to eat, where to bathe, and most importantly where to sleep which was, of course, in his own quarters, gloomy and disgusting. She was silent the whole time and with great life of his own, Valter took no notice as he welcomed his dear and stolen bride to her new home.

But he could not remain ignorant to how despondent she was forever.

His fantasy of the lovely maiden in his threshold, playing and laughing and enjoying herself in his garden where she belonged, fell to pieces and Valter would not have a second of it. Eirika was going to be his bride, his wife, in love and joy and he would force such a thing upon her if necessary, for his will and whim were law where light did not reach.

The irony of the fact that Eirika exuded a natural glow and radiance, a soft and almost yellow light, like the sun, was not lost on Valter for he was attracted to that springtime sunshine that Eirika was made of.

He would consummate this marriage one way or another and whilst simply impaling her on his lance would suffice, there were more subtle ways to ensure that their souls remained entwined to one another, so he took her down to the garden where the pomegranate tree grew. It was just outside his castle, in the middle of a spiralling labyrinth made of withered dead hedges but as they passed through it, finding that field with the pomegranate tree, Eirika’s prescience caused it all to come back to life, even as Valter passed through it as well. Seeing the greenery return to his domain pleased him immensely and they made it to the centre.

A small centre. Mostly empty save for its two key features and it was under the shade of the pomegranate tree, which was husky and wiry, that they sat. Valter stood in dirt, in withered grass, and Eirika sat in verdant lushness. She glanced around and felt most uncomfortable here, but she watched as Valter gently plucked the lowest hanging pomegranate from the overhanging tree branch.

The pomegranate was one of the rare things in his world which grew unassisted. And Valter thought that most apt as the pomegranate was a rare fruit which, when cut and crushed, looked like the gored heart of a mortal. He liked that. Found it direly amusing.

Valter held the fruit in his sallow, gnarled hands carefully as he sat down in front of Eirika. As her equal, he would think as they were wife and husband to be. He smiled with cruel wiles on his lips and Eirika glared. Glared cutely, he admired. Her eyes were opalescent like moonstones, her hair as blue as the scales on an emperor butterfly. And if her glare was any parameter to assess her knowledge by then Valter suspected that she knew the rule. What a smart girl. He liked that very much.

But still, he had to ask. He offered her the fruit.

She said no.

He offered her again. More pleadingly this time.

She said no. More cuttingly this time.

And Valter was convicted of his belief. She knew the rule and she was going to abhor it, it appeared. The rule being that if one ate the food of the Underworld, one would never be able to leave the Underworld and it enraged Valter that she would reject his royal advances onto her.

He crushed the pomegranate in his hand. Eirika flinched; she raised a protective hand, a feeble barrier against Valter’s encroaching might. But her eyes stared fixedly on his hand. On the crushed remains of the pomegranate which erupted and spewed seeds and bloody juices.

He loomed over her. Drawing closer and closer to her no matter how she pushed back. His lips were almost on her neck, almost kissing and suckling her pulse, she could smell his breath which reeked of rot and decay, but she tried to push back. Her fingers fanning over his armoured breast, riveting him with every touch. With his free hand, Valter grabbed her wrist and yanked her forward. In a hopeless tug, Eirika was subdued and now even pinned. Their legs slotted artfully around each other.

Valter grinded on her leg like a grovelling dog, kissing lurid sweetness onto her throat as he shoved the pomegranate remains closer to her rosy lips. Eirika refused. Again, and again she tried to resist but Valter overpowered her. He ripped her clothes and he smeared juice and seeds on her naked body as she writhed, trying to escape him. But he was persistent and heavy. He viciously enjoyed how she struggled.

At the peak of what he saw as fun and games, with the fruit at her lips, with the seeds spilling everywhere as she struggled to breathe, he managed to force six seeds past her lips. She swallowed with choking regret. Finally satisfied, Valter stilled himself and cooed about what a good little maidenly girl that she was.

Eirika sputtered, trying to reject how the seeds had been in her mouth, in her throat, and now in her belly, she found herself calmed by the descent of this ordeal’s climax. But as she fixated on what had happened to her, she so strangely revelled in the tart sweetness of the pomegranate.

Feelings mixed and freed, boiled in the acid of her stomach as she let was helpless to let those six pomegranate seeds do little more than doom her soul to the Underworld’s allegiance. She felt something strange inside of her; her teeth felt hollow having crunched on the seeds and her throat, having swallowed them basically unimpeded. The flavour of the pomegranate seeds spread through her mouth. Through her nerves and through her senses. Exonerating her of her lust which she had always suppressed because she had feared that it would revile others who expected only the utmost purity and chastity from her the Goddess of Eternal Springtime.

But something strange was happening. Inside of her. She could feel lust and arousal take root inside of her and spread their seductive pollen through her as activated by the ingestion and dissolution of those seeds. She thought she couldn’t think straight; she told herself that she couldn’t think straight but as her eyes feasted on the less than handsomeness of the man before her, she knew the lies that she was trying to tell herself to be loudly false.

Looking up at Valter’s face, carved and rugged with ferity and grimness, Eirika could see some beauty in his skeletal cheekbones and his rabid eyes. He was all but slobbering for her and Eirika had never known anyone to openly want her with all of their loins before because they, too, wanted her to remain in that niched façade of purity. So, truth be told, such hunger in his eyes awoke something in Eirika and – and she found herself wanting it. She found herself wanting the seeds’ effect on her to go stronger and deeper and she came alive unlike how she had been living before and Valter adored such skirting of innocence and flirtation on the cusp of intercourse.

Eirika was finally made lively once more. Her heart did pound: quicker, louder, stronger. But her body itself, glowing and holy, giving light to this awful and dreary place, was stilled. She had found clarity, somehow, despite how her stomach knotted and how her heart hammered, and her mind told her to be afraid of this canine man atop of her but, instead, she wasn’t. If this man was going to be her husband, be it for just a day, just week, or just all eternity, then the least she could do, and she owed it to herself at the very least, was to own the situation. She was to be Queen here, after all. And so, she licked her lips and she submitted to that terrible bloom of lust inside of her.

Valter, unaware of Eirika’s inner turmoil, laughed atop her, astride. A great and satisfied laugh from the deepest pits of his stomach that came out a harsh and barking noise. A noise which did quell with so much as a cough from Eirika. She roused his attention and with securitising eyes, he searched her for trickery or vengeance.

He saw nothing of the like in her eyes. They were a little misty, yes, but they weren’t defiant. Perhaps a little cautious but not hateful. Valter was almost disappointed but he enjoyed the placid blue by any token just as sweet.

She licked her lips and she beckoned him. He was greatly intrigued, and he was happy to further spread the pomegranate remains painting her skin. The blood and flesh of it, smearing on her so sticky and sweet. He licked her mouth and he kissed her hard and she sighed – melted – into this greedy kiss of his.

With their bodies entwined, shining through with the slick of jewel-like pomegranate seeds and the white pulp of its flesh, they did more than just consummate their marriage with just the rule of abyssal food. They consummated it in sex as well.

Eirika shifted slightly beneath Valter, clutching him tight and felt him inside of her in due recourse.

He ploughed her field and sewed his seeds. He released his repungent ichor inside of her and she came with ecstasy which cast aside repression and other ills. She allowed it to be bodily and only bodily as she had less than tender sex with him in the meagre shade of the scrawny pomegranate tree which grew here in this place of eternal darkness which no longer belonged to him and him alone. He had himself a Queen, now, after all.

Meanwhile, where the sun, radiant and glowing and pure, did shine, Ephraim descended from the beams in search of his sister, only to happen upon her belongings abandoned. He knew that Eirika would never leave her precious sword behind – nor would she leave things only half made or alone. He knew immediately, searching through the meadow, with a quickening heartbeat, that something terrible had happened. It did not take long before that panic took hold of him. His haphazard searches, with an uncertain voice, calling out “Eirika, Eirika, Eirika?” over and over became far more refined. Became destructive.

With the might of the sun behind him, haloed by that solar glow, Ephraim ploughed through the land in search of his dear twin sister. Desperate and distraught. His powers as the Sun God laid ruin to the land as he spared no inch of it left unsearched for her or any sign of her.

For seven days and seven nights, without rest of any kind, Ephraim did scour the lands of Magvel. Tearing through the five nations united upon it with flames on his heel as he tried to find Eirika.

His fury over his sister’s disappearance was unlike anyone had ever seen; gods and humans alike were terrified of him and his fearsome search as he raided every corner of Magvel for his darling sister. Not stopping once; not to eat, to sleep, to drink, or to bathe. His wake left fields barren and he threatened to make all the world, not just his precious Magvel, a ruin if his sister was not returned to him.

But without rest, his body did wither and wilt on the brink of exhaustion, but he willed himself not to betray his emotions. Thus, taking pity on him, on the eighth day, Tana appeared before him.

She appeared before him as a concerned friend upon the back of the blindingly white Pegasus that she rode. It landed delicately in the middle of Ephraim’s warpath and for a moment, there was a look in his eyes, grateful that someone had come to stop him from himself. He sighed. He resigned himself to whatever it was that Tana wanted from his and unsurprisingly, given that she was the Goddess of Safe Travels, she wanted to take him somewhere.

And it was precisely because she was the Goddess of Safe Travels, she felt the need to intervene. Her folk who roamed could not go anywhere with Ephraim making a mess of the land so she decided that it would fall to her duty rather than other deity to quell Ephraim’s rightful rage. Though, she did find it peculiar that Lyon did not step in first; he was a close companion of Ephraim, after all, and would likely hate to see him such a state but she supposed it mattered not so long as someone helped Ephraim. And he was agreeable when she appeared before him with an idea as to how they might recover their dearest Eirika.

Together, on the back of a Pegasus, Tana and Ephraim rode to where L’Arachel spent her days in spoilt bliss – at the palace temple of Rausten where she was, more or less, enshrined.

L’Arachel was the Goddess of Magic and Light and was a popular oracle to the people. It was for that talent that Tana had Ephraim appear before her. She was shocked to hear that Eirika had gone missing and that Ephraim was on the brink of exhaustion having been raging to find her. She had been completely oblivious to the past seven days and all the havoc that Ephraim had wrought upon the land by dooming it to fragility and infertility, amongst other natural disasters.

So, she fed him biscuits and had him drink tea whilst she worked her wonders. She was able to bring light to where there was dark and was able to reveal that which had been unknown to them and of the three of them, none were so pleased to discover the truth as to why Eirika had gone missing.

Using the mystic light which filtered through crystal orb that adorned the end of her divine rod, L’Arachel was able to create visions for Ephraim and Tana to watch, aghast and in horror. L’Arachel’s magic showed that Eirika had been abducted from her divine meadow by none other than the Lord of Darkness, the King of the Underworld, the Dark Moonstone, Valter and that in the past seven days, she had been made his wife.

The three were immediately against such a marriage.

Though Valter had power over one third of the known realms, having powers equivalent to his own companion, Lyon, emperor of the skies, Ephraim absolutely loathed the idea of his twin sister being that wretched fiend’s bride. And so, Ephraim decided to petition Lyon, hoping that he would do something about this abomination of a marriage.

But none of the three of them had enough godly power to open the earth so they may reach the Underworld. So, with options slim, it became apparent to them that they ought to do in order to attain that power.

And so, with L’Arachel’s well-wishing behind them, Tana took Ephraim to the top of Mount Grado and Ephraim marched into Lyon’s court. Before Ephraim could get a word in about Valter, he was disparaged on all sides for his conduct. Something which caused his brow to quirk in suspicion. It was unlike his dear companion to criticise him like that. Especially given he had had a flash of anger little over a week ago as well which had caused atrocity, albeit more briefly than Ephraim’s anger.

Upset with the conflict between friends, Tana silenced the room with her wind magic. She stirred the air, whipped it up until it all but blasted those from where they stood. When the reams of silk strewn through the columns upholding Lyon’s temple flapped no longer in the gale, placid and more civil discussion was finally allowed to take place. Ephraim pushed back his shoulders and brought the news of his twin sister’s abduction to the court.

Most distressingly, Lyon revealed that he had suspected that it was Valter had abducted Eirika for the purpose of making her his bride and he decided to simply look away so that he may ignore that such a thing came about from his own cowardice and indecision regarding his own feelings unto her. That disturbed and enraged Ephraim once more. He yelled and shouted at his companion whilst Tana grimaced, but Lyon shrunk in on himself and made cutting remarks about himself and his own complacency, but he decided that, even though he was the Emperor of the Skies, it was out of his hands.

Ephraim warned that he would continue to raze the lands below their precious Mountain Grado and beyond but still. Lyon did nothing but ask, in a tiny voice, that Ephraim leave his court. And without using that tiny voice of his, the corollary decree unspoken was that Eirika would remain in the Underworld with Valter until both of them decided to resurface on their own volition for he just wanted Ephraim to leave. Nothing more, nothing less. And so, Lyon would not open a portal, or the like there.

So, Ephraim did as he was told in obedient defiance of the Emperor God’s orders. He left on foot, with Tana uselessly tailing him but he shoved her away. If he could not sway Lyon’s mind, he would simply force it, so he took the guise of a human and he roamed the land. He told the trees not to bear fruit; he told the springs to become undrinkable; he told the very earth underfoot not to bear its goods. What he touched, burned and smouldered. He made it that famine would him until Lyon bowed to Ephraim’s will and open that portal to the Underworld for him.

Ephraim’s crusade for his sister spanned for a year.

And for a year, Eirika did remain in Valter’s clutches. In the Underworld, she was pampered beyond all compare. She was given all the finest regalia to clad herself with. Flowers to wear in her hair; jewels to wear on her neck; and plenty more decorations for herself and her private quarters as Valter was most content when he was trying to lavish his dearest wife.

He so much preferred to spend his time with her than attending to his duties which had seen an uptick as of late, but he cared not for the cause. Humans were so dull. Disgusting, too. Vermin. They barely made good prey unlike his dearest Eirika who was so, so amusing.

Theirs was a strangely amiable relationship. Eirika did not want to like him, and he made it very difficult thanks to his grim disposition, but he was content to have her. He appeared content, somewhere within his misery, spurned by the overworld, to have that and that alone. He lavished her, yes, prized her dearly, but he made her feel wanted in a way which was matured beyond how she was wanted by her brother or by their friends. Her friends. He was eerie, yes, wanting to know where she was at every minute of every hour that dreadfully persisted but when he wasn’t working, and he was surprisingly dutiful, he had so many things that he wanted to offer Eirika, to placate her hostility which waxed and waned on her moods.

She was spoilt by him but more interestingly, she felt as though she were treated like an adult woman around him. Her brother, and even their friends, it often felt to her that she was a child. Sweet and naïve. He saw beyond her maidenly façade as the Goddess of Eternal Springtime and saw that she was just capable as being wise, even akin to a crone, not just a child content to play in fields, making garlands and plucking flower fortunes.

Fortunes which, no matter how they were stripped and picked, would always deflower to encouraging her to romance Valter and to take her role as his wife seriously. Thoughts which made her feel wrong and guilty but appealed to her greatly all the same. But she was forever quick to dash such silly hopes. She wasn’t a child. There was no need to be superstitious, but it seemed that her love and trust could be bought, and she did enjoy the things which he gave her. They were material objects so different to what she was frequently gifted above, there was only ever one strain of his gifts which she outwardly and defiantly rejected and that never spurned her for it. Merely found it curious. So, of what Eirika did accept from him as tribute, the jewellery and the dresses and weapons, she admired the variety and its intrinsic eccentricity of its qualities.

Additionally, he never chided her swordplay. He even encouraged it and was looking forward to the day when she mastered the reaping swords that he gave her so they could have a mock spar. He saw her as an equal, perhaps even someone who could be moulded above him in terms of such strength, unlike her brother who saw it fit to belittle her. Remind her that she would never be as good as him in practice of weaponry.

In return, he did ask of one little thing from Eirika. And Eirika had to admit, this condition pleased her just as much as it pleased him. He asked that he perform at least one of her roles as wife. He wanted to have the occasional tryst with her and Eirika wanted that as well. She could feel herself yearn for his body, so she was darling to submit to him for it was in her sublime pleasure as much as it was for him.

For Valter, she opened her legs and he eagerly drank of the nectar that there was within her intimacy. Admittedly, her pleasure was incidental, but he was thorogh with her regardless purely because what she ignited in him was so powerful and devotional a lust. His tongue was forked and when it repeatedly and deftly flicked over her clitoris, Eirika felt hellfire in her ensuing orgasm. Powerful and strong, wanting even more from Valter and his body. And she made such pleasure known to him; his deviant eagerness for her body was unparalleled.

He was like a beast. She was vulnerable and fair but oh how she desired to have all his devotion as predator. The way he made love was rough and coarse but Eirika swooned beneath him; clutching his shoulders as he repeatedly thrust her over, enjoying every motion of his granite hips. He was horrific in demeanour and attitude but Eirika revelled in every second of it, adoring it from the bottom of her glowing soul – bringing the cruellest and most satisfied smile to Valter’s wicked face.

Not once did he degrade her. He was obsessed with her beauty and strength; had nothing but poison dripped praise for her. Such words made Eirika melt and she adored it with breathtaking sighs ensuing from such strange love making.

Over the course of a year by a mortal’s count, Valter had taken Eirika in many positions and in even more places. In his personal quarters; atop his throne; amid the various, withered and restored gardens on his castle’s grounds. Oh, what fantastic sport that they had.

But, despite the various pleasures and pains that Valter attempted to blindside her with, Eirika had her eyes on him in more than one way. She analysed him as a husband and as an enemy in all straits. She had a mind. And she saw what was happening above this nether realm. She wouldn’t let herself be subdued through flattery and his acrid sweetness. She saw how the dead come to this realm in unusually high droves; she knew something horrible was happening and that a lack of food was the cause. Out of respect to these poor, unfortunate souls, despite wanting for nothing, for living a lap of luxury which presented her elaborate banquet after banquet, Eirika did not eat.

With no food to feed the people, devotion to the gods from the people waned as they starved and terrorised by his guilt of letting things get so out of hand out of complacent self-preservation, Lyon bowed to Ephraim and his rage. He summoned Tana to his court and instructed her to bring Ephraim home, then, he would open a hellmouth for the Sun God. Quick as the swiftest wind Tana’s Pegasus flew as she searched high and low for Ephraim, but she soon found him using her magic as the Goddess of Safe Travels.

Sharing the news with Ephraim that Lyon finally intended to help him save Eirika, Ephraim was delighted and agreed to return to Mount Grado with her. With his mind changed, both gods had softened, and patched words of reconciliation took place just before Lyon summoned a fiery lightning strike from above: one so powerful it struck the earth deep enough to open a pathway through to the Underworld.

And so, with reconciliation uncertainly budding between them once more, Lyon gifted Ephraim with more than just a path through to the Underworld. He bid him some sound advice: a minor deity such as himself, though powerful in his own right, would not stand as strong as he would like against Valter, ruling god of the Underworld, and especially in his own domain. Ephraim would do well to remember that since he was so frequently blindsided by his own righteousness so Lyon gifted him a mirror which, when broke, would allow Lyon to see what was happening and even go so far as interact with the scene, even so far above in the heavens just above the sky of Magvel.

Ephraim thanked Lyon profusely and stashed the mirror in his slung bag. Then, he was ready to leave.

Thus, with a heart that pound steadily and an unflinching brow, Ephraim descended into the Underworld with Tana in tow. She guided him through the weaving and winding roads, took him over the various rivers of the Underworld. He was grateful for her aide as the more he saw of the Underworld, the more certain he became that Valter was an unfit husband for his sister and this was a realm unfit for her in general.

At the thick of whee such vile miasma swirled, alone and isolated, away from where the souls of mortals were either rewarded or tortured based on their behaviour in life, decorated with both a garden dead and alive, Ephraim and Tana found the castle belonging to Valter. Upon its moonstone steps, he awaited with his wife beside him.

Eirika’s expression, once stony, softened when she saw her brother and her dear friend Tana. She welcomed them warmly in contrast to how Valter glared, cold as ice, against them both. And Ephraim was quick to dash this meeting on the doorsteps, he produced his own weapon and was ready to use it against Valter but Eirika superseded both men.

She protected her unlawful husband against her brother.

Even Tana was shocked. She gawked, gaped, and tore Ephraim away from the situation, crying out to her dear friend for an explanation.

That explanation was love.

Sad but true. Dressed in the regalia of the Underworld, indigos and purples lined gold, heavy and detailed with devilish lace all crowned with a circlet of thorns and sprinkled pomegranate seeds upon her head, Eirika was content with her position as wife of Valter and as Queen of the Underworld. Even if it spurned her from where the heavens were scraped by Mount Grado, where all many of the other gods lived and from the topside world in general.

But Ephraim demanded his sister’s presence at his own side, like they had been together from the womb and onwards, and so, Valter released her willingly. Gleefully even with a markedly cruel grin but Eirika did not smile. She was not happy to be so easily released like Ephraim and Tana had expected after a year of captivity.

Confounded, Ephraim begged an explanation. Cackling, Valter told Ephraim that he was many months too late. Eirika was his. For now, and forever as she had eaten food of the realm. Only six pomegranate seeds, though, but she had still eaten. Then, to boast, he did make mention of how Eirika was such great prey with lithe legs and the most splendid honey, making the goddess blush and avert her gaze in demure embarrassment.

Ephraim was disgusted. And he readied that disgust as good as any weapon equal to his lance, but Tana stopped him. She reminded Ephraim that this was not a place where the sun did dwell, after all and that there were other powers that they could defer to.

Ephraim glared. Lyon, he thought. He still wasn’t sure if he could trust his friend. He was so hot and cold. For a year, he had been mostly fine with Valter having Eirika purely because Valter had the stones to do that which he could not do which was take Eirika for himself. The inherent cowardice of it sickened him but he cast such thoughts aside as he drew forth the mirror from his knapsack hanging over his shoulders all but nearly forgotten.

Tana breathed a sigh of relief. Eirika glanced at Valter who eyed Ephraim very closely for a trick. He would not yield his wife to the likes of them. Not when he considered the past year to be utter marital bliss, even if it was breached by all those mortals dying in droves thanks to the famine that Ephraim had caused.

Ephraim broke the mirror in his hand, but the flesh was not cut. Nor did the shards fall downwards. Crackles of electricity – little jolts and bolts of yellow lightning tinged violet – jumped between the shards and a vision of the Emperor God came to.

Valter was most displeased to see his Imperial Majesty, even through the glamour of broken glass. Eirika, meanwhile, was elated. She had so missed her good friend Lyon and said hello to him with a most blithe smile.

Lyon returned the welcome, lukewarm, before exchanging a scowl with Valter who, with bitter relish, explained that Eirika could not leave the Underworld for she had eaten those six, fateful pomegranate seeds. Grimacing, Lyon did agree that he had no power to remove such a curse off her body and soul. They were now inexorably tied to the Underworld and ergo, to Valter who had fed them in symbol of marital consummation.

But he did say with pointed tongue, lifting Ephraim’s spirits, and palpably dampening Valter’s spirits, Lyon pointed out that Eirika had only eaten six seeds and she had not eaten any further food of the Underworld’s since. Not one bite at a single banquet that Valter had prepared for her, she elaborated, and he corroborated her testimony with spite behind his words.

Six seeds to twelve months of a year.

So, Lyon asked if Eirika would be so lucky as to spend half her year – six months – in the Underworld, with her husband and half her year – her other six months – on Mount Grado or among mortals on Magvel.

And he taunted Valter to be very careful with his words. Below ground, when he was one of the three triadic, primal gods, he may be powerful but if Lyon were to make the piligrimmage, that power would be diminished greatly.

Eirika glanced at Valter and to the surprise of her brother and her dear friend, she placed a hand on Valter’s. She leaned in, whispered sweet and consoling words, promising that six months was not all that long when they had the godly expense of immortality and all eternity to be content with. Hearing that, knowing the truth and sweetness of Eirika’s words, Valter’s hackles were pushed back.

He relented. Fine. Go and be merry, he told his wife and the interlopers in his domain. Six months and not a day later, he would have Eirika again. Eirika was thrilled, she kissed Valter and then her brother and then Tana as well for good measure: each of them on the lips with a caress as well. Making Valter jealous, Ephraim awkward, and Tana giggly in the process. The two of them spirited her away from her husband but she looked back, tearful and he was grim when he farewelled her despite knowing that he would get her back as she was ferried off from whence, she came.

But Eirika was looking forward to it. To when the six months ahead of her, on mortal land and in the land of the living and gods, came to a close because she wanted to be reciprocal wife to Valter as well as Queen of the Underworld, willing and living visitor to such a realm.

**Author's Note:**

> Also for anyone not familiar with Greek myths, here are who everyone was based on, some more loosely than others
> 
> Eirika = Persephone  
> Valter = Hades  
> Ephraim = Demeter (with a little bit of Helios)  
> L'Arachel = Hecate (with a little bit of Delphi Oracle)  
> Tana = Hermes  
> Lyon = Zeus


End file.
